Page 29 of The Flowers of Bay C
‘Okay,’ I say.
Dan breezes in later with his usual purpose and vigour. ‘Penny,cariad,’ he says, playing up his Welsh accent. ‘I’m told we’re going to get you out into the sunshine today?’
I look out of the window at the grey November morning. ‘Hmm.’
‘We’ll do your drainage afterward, so as not to wear you out too much.’
As Dan leads me through the doors to the garden, the damp air hits me square in the chest and I bend over in a convulsion of coughing. Dan holds onto my arm and steadies me. ‘No need for the histrionics, my lovely.’
I roll my eyes at him and get my breathing back to a stable place. ‘Can I sit on the bench?’
Dan helps me over and supports me as I sit. It’s seen better days, this bench, all flaky green paint and exposed shards of wood. But it’s a place of wonder for me, after days enclosed in the warm heaviness of the bay. I turn my face up to the watery sunshine and close my eyes.
The garden is mostly bare in the winter months, a few hardy blooms clinging to life, the winter jasmine and cyclamen a welcome surge of colour through the grey. In the spring and summer it blazes with vibrancy and soothes all those who sit in it, but even now it is what it says it is; a place of tranquillity and escape from the ravages of hospital life.
‘Good?’ Dan says.
‘Mmm.’
It’s good for a few minutes, and then it’s cold, and then it hurts, but I did it. I made it. Penny made it to the garden sounds better than Penny went to the toilet, doesn’t it Mother?
???
I’m woken later by the clatter of the tea trolley. ‘Tea?’ the plastic apron-clad healthcare assistant says to me. It’s not Nicki today, it’s a tired looking middle-aged woman with short brown hair and glasses held together with sellotape. She looks like she needs a holiday.
‘Yesplease.’
A tiny elderly woman with a mouth full of teeth like chipped piano keys spread in the widest grin I’ve ever seen walks into the bay. She’s going round all the beds asking patients if they want to come to chapel on Sunday. Their team will come and fetch them in hospital wheelchairs, she says. We all say no, thank you, apart from Kat who says she’d like that, and would they like her to lead the service?
The smiley lady chuckles, patting Kat’s hand. ‘Away with you. You are a one, you are. You’re here to get better, not take services!’
‘I might just liven them up for you. Wake up all those sleeping patients who snore through the sermon.’
Smiley Lady laughs harder, a great guffaw that matches her larger-than-life beam. ‘What are you like, Rev Kat?’
As she leaves the ward, Jodie is on her feet, cigarettes in hand. She stops at Kat’s bed. ‘Why are you a vicar?’
Kat suddenly looks weary, like the weight of everything comes crashing down on her all at once. She leans back, her head sinking into the pillows, closing her eyes. Jodie shrugs and starts to walk off.
‘Because I can’t not be,’ Kat whispers.
Jodie doesn’t hear her.
Violet says, ‘I’m coming. Wait for me.’ She shuffles out of the bay behind Jodie, leaning on her walking frame. ‘Brian brought it in for me,’ she says, seeing me watching. ‘Much better than those awful hospital ones. Filthy things.’ Her walker has a seat with a basket underneath it and looks like something I could do with but prefer to shun under denial along with mobility scooters and walking sticks. You don’t need one of those things, Marcus said to me, you just need to strengthen your body.
It’s quiet in the bay, with Kat sleeping, Amina watching something on her tablet and Barbara on her chair,staring into space. I pick up my book, neglected since Jake brought it in for me, the words swimming through my weary brain. Maybe today I can get some reading in. I settle back on the bed, sipping my tea and finding my place. It’s not a challenging book. Pappy chick-lit, Jake calls it. Jilted quirky thirty-something called Emma with tumbling red curls who loves knitting and triathlons leaves the city and starts a bakery by the sea where she meets a mysterious, rich young man who wants to sample her baps. He sweeps her off her feet and helps her save the bakery from the hands of the nasty man who wants to knock it down and build new houses over the site. And they all live happily ever after.
‘Hey! You, girl,’ Barbara shouts across the ward to me. I look around the bay, hoping for rescue. But no one is around.
‘Come over here, darling,’ Barbara says.
I breathe out slowly. I’ve spent days ignoring her plaintive calls to me, but now I have some strength I should show her I’m not heartless. I drag my weary body across the ward, ignoring the rush of blood to my head, and hover near her chair, which is loaded with clothes and medical detritus. She pats her bed.
I shouldn’t sit. Infection control, the ward sister always says, stern little lines slashed over her face. Patients must not sit on other patients’ beds or chairs. The wordCovidlingers in the air but never gets said. No one wants to hear it. We all heard enough of it when it raged through the world. I shudder, thinking about the months of shielding, trying not to go too near Jake, not to hug him.
Most of the staff turn a blind eye when we sit on one another’s chairs, but Sister Harris shoos us off, squawking like a riled-up mother hen. And beds are a complete no-no. She’s here today, Sister Harris, on the warpath, eagle eyes scouting for any of her staff slacking off or making mistakes. I have to sit now, though. My legs are water and I will splash to the floor in a few seconds. I squaton the end of Barbara’s bed, anxiously scanning the station outside the bay like a schoolkid in trouble trying to evade a teacher.
Barbara grabs my hand and I can’t wrench mine away. Can’t hurt her feelings. I’ve heard the doctors discussing her, the nurses in the night in hushed tones as they replace the mask she’s pushed away once again, the whispers of the short time she has left. So I squeeze her hand softly. It feels like thin tissue paper wrapped around a bunch of those flimsy matches that always break when you try to strike them.
